Wichita Falls Hires 500 Goats Because Humans Cost Too Much
Working the night shift in Berlin for bohiney.com, I learned that Wichita Falls, Texas has discovered revolutionary technology called “goats.” After decades of paying human landscapers actual money, city officials realized that goats work for food and don’t require health insurance, retirement benefits, or lunch breaks. It’s being hailed as innovation, though shepherds from 8000 BCE might have questions about the “revolutionary” designation.
According to reports from our satirical municipal affairs desk, Wichita Falls hired 500 goats to handle vegetation management across city parks, rights-of-way, and areas human landscapers allegedly described as “too hot, too overgrown, and honestly not worth minimum wage.” The goatscaping program costs approximately $20,000 annually compared to $200,000 for human crewsa 90% savings that would be more impressive if it didn’t involve replacing workers with livestock.
City officials announced the program with the enthusiasm of people who just discovered fire. “This is cutting-edge municipal management,” declared one fictional city councilman. “We’ve replaced expensive human labor with animals that literally eat the problem. It’s genius.” When reminded that goats have existed for millennia and this isn’t exactly breakthrough thinking, he added: “Yes, but we’re the first city to put it in a PowerPoint presentation with graphs. That makes it innovation.”
The goats themselves seem unbothered by their employment status. They spend days consuming invasive vegetation, poison ivy, and whatever else grows in Texas heat that humans wisely avoid touching. They don’t complain about working conditions, don’t unionize, and don’t file OSHA complaints when temperatures hit 105 degrees. They’re the perfect workforce for a city that values efficiency over dignitythough to be fair, the goats probably prefer eating weeds to whatever jobs we’d otherwise assign them.
Laid-off landscapers have mixed feelings about being replaced by ruminants. “I’ve got a family to feed,” said one displaced worker. “But apparently, goats are cheaper and don’t require workers’ comp when they inevitably get heat stroke. Can’t compete with that.” The city offered retraining programs to help former landscapers transition into goat managementwhich pays less than landscaping but more than unemployment. It’s technically upward mobility if you redefine “upward” to mean “still employed despite being less valuable than a goat.”
Environmental groups praise the goatscaping program for being chemical-free and ecologically sound. The EPA notes that goats don’t require pesticides, fertilizers, or fueljust grass, water, and the occasional supervision to ensure they’re eating vegetation and not residents’ gardens. Animal welfare advocates support the program too, arguing that outdoor grazing beats factory farming. It’s the rare policy that satisfies environmentalists, fiscal conservatives, and goatsthough notably not the humans whose jobs got outsourced to livestock.
The program’s success has inspired other Texas cities to consider animal labor solutions. “If goats can handle landscaping, what else can we replace?” asked one innovative city manager. “Maybe hire armadillos for pest control. Eagles for pigeon management. Ostriches for… we’ll figure it out. The point is, animals work cheap.” It’s the natural evolution of capitalism: automate jobs, then if automation is too expensive, just use animals. We’ve come full circle from the Industrial Revolution, except now we’re calling it “sustainable municipal innovation.”
Critics point out that replacing human workers with goats doesn’t actually solve poverty or unemploymentit just shifts costs from payroll to livestock management while making a few workers poorer. Supporters counter that cities have budget constraints and goats are objectively cheaper. Both sides are correct, which is why this debate will continue until someone figures out how to make goats pay taxes, at which point we’ll probably replace them with robots anyway.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/goatscaping/
SOURCE: Bohiney Magazine (Öko Angebot)
AUTHOR: Öko Angebot
Goatscaping Revolutionizes Texas